The film-makers behind this Dalai Lama documentary must be cursing the timing of its release, just after that video sullied his godlike status as hero of world peace and symbol of Tibet’s resistance against China. Narrated with dignified gravitas by Hugh Bonneville, its selling point is an interview with the Dalai Lama, speaking on film for the first time about his escape from Tibet in 1959, aged 23. Though to be honest, describing the encounter as an interview is pushing it. These days, what you get with the rock star Nobel prize-winning spiritual leader is an “audience with the Dalai Lama”; the interviewer’s role is to sit in rapt silence.
So, with a cheeky grin, the 87-year-old relates the story of his escape from Tibet. Rambling a little, he describes disguising himself as a soldier to slip out of his palace in the dead of night, sneaking past Chinese guards; his journey to freedom took two weeks, travelling across the Himalayas on foot at night to reach Dharamshala in India to set up a government-in-exile. He’s speaking to British BBC journalist Rani Singh, whose uncle was an Indian official sent to the bring the Dalai Lama to safety; the two men reunite at the end.
The Dalai Lama teaches compassion in the face of Chinese aggression. His younger brother’s more downbeat take on the future of the Tibetan government in exile feels like a more real world assessment. If the Tibetan presence in India becomes a thorn in relations between India and China, he says, “then I think we’ve had it”. A human rights activist describes life for Tibetans now under Chinese rule: having a photo of the Dalai Lama on your phone is enough to be sent to prison.
Otherwise this is a scrappy film: there’s an unnecessary section about Heinrich Harrer, the Austrian mountaineer who took the final photograph of the Dalai Lama in free Tibet. Elsewhere it’s a bit soft-focus. Richard West, aka Mr C from the Shamen, weighs in on how to heal the world: the power of art can “carry the flame” and make everyone “think correctly”. You may feel you can live without these pearls of wisdom.
• Never Forget Tibet: The Dalai Lama’s Untold Story is released on 19 April in UK and Irish cinemas
